Lord Betrayus

	"FAIRY GODPARENTS!'" — Denzel Crocker This is a good article.

Lord Betrayus "*Sucking his thumb* “I should've won! But, You, You useless slug server! You let that lemon menace win!" *whimpers*", as heard in "Pac-Pong Fever". Gender: Male Type: Tyrannical Manchild Ghostly Villain-Wannabe Age: Immortal Species: Ghost Pac-Worlder (before he was banished) Portrayed by: Samuel Vincent (TV series) Christopher Corey Smith (video games) Status: Deceased Media of origin: Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures First appearance: The Adventure Begins

"We interrupt this program to bring you an important message from the Netherrealm. Boo! Hahaha! Scared you, didn't I?" - Betrayus's first words in "The Adventure Begins".

Lord Betrayus "Sneakerous" Spheros (also simply known as Betrayus), better known as Lord Betrayus, is the main antagonist of the video game Pac Man and the Ghostly Adventures and its sequel, as well as plays a role as the main antagonist of the animated TV series Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures.

Background

He is an utterly vengeful and power-hungry arch-nemesis of Pac-Man who used to be a Pac-Worlder and citizen, but due to his plan of starting a war and nearly wiping out a ton of Pac-People during his time, he became stripped of his body and was sent to the Netherworld as a form of punishment, being banished from Pac-World for committing genocide and familicide, he is also well known for being responsible for the deaths of Pac-Man's parents and the entire race of the "Yellow Ones" before The Pacinator and Apex were introduced.

As a ghost, he now seeks to get his body back by seeking to obtain the repository Stratos keeps in his dormitory in order to rule Pac-World with an iron fist, he often sends his ghostly people to do his bidding while he remains on his throne, endlessly plotting revenge every time his plans are typically foiled by Pac-Worlders, every time.

Why He Intentionally Failed to Scare Us

1. For starters, he is the most unthreatening and pathetic Pac-Man villain of all time. Even though he is cocky, cunning, malicious, ruthless, deceptive, and villainous, he tends to be extremely incompetent, empty-headed, dorky, and ignorant many times.
   • Where Lord Betrayus was once meant to be a purely evil type of villain that was a somewhat strict but competent warlord who was cruel enough to commit genocide towards Pac-World when he was alive and once inspired genuine fear and loyalty in his troops, as well as inflicting successful attacks on the Resistance for the time before losing his body as shown in the first episode, and the episode "Pac to the Future" showcasing this. But ever since the first episode of the show, he is a crime-boss who acts like a villainous "Mean popular boy" stereotype that is simply way too goofy, infantile, and clownish to be taken seriously in any way as the show's main antagonist.
   • Because of making him a constant joke for the show to ridicule, he's not any real threat to Pac World as a ghostly overlord despite his many attempts at making himself look fearsome or notorious (albeit them being either useful or often useless), even more so than Dr. Robotnik from Sonic Boom, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic X, and Sonic Underground, or any other generic villain wannabe in history. All in a rather underwhelming way since he seems to be often viewed and depicted as a minor annoyance deserving to be poked fun at by anyone for being a abrasive jerk and a nuisance; making it all the more impossible to take him seriously. Which is pretty bad for Betrayus since he becomes a lot less menacing over time and a lot more of a one-dimensional joke for a villain, rather than being actually threatening or complex as a villain.
   • Much like many clichéd, old-fashionedly ineffectual villains of fiction, he generally tends to rely on his typically ineffective minions to always do the dirty work of defeating Pac-Man for him since Betrayus is way too inept and lazy to do it himself as a ghostly scoundrel.
     • All of his failures and moments of embarrassment typically have him look unfortunate and awkward in an extremely predictable way. He even blames others for whatever misfortune happens to him despite it usually being Betrayus himself who caused it.
   • He regularly commands someone to come up with a plan and takes credit for said plan. However, if the plan goes awry, he forces all blame upon the plan's originator, who likely had no choice in the first place to concoct it. He even takes all the credit for the bright ideas his minions make, taking absolutely no consideration for their efforts.
2. Not only is he a generic and incredibly lame supervillain that rips off Mezmeron from the 1982 Pac-Man TV series and Vlad Plasmius from Danny Phantom, but he is a complete and utter manchild that has shown to be way too obnoxious as a villain and happens to be a true sissy as well; prone to throwing countless breakdowns, acting like a unruly brat, never learning from his mistakes, and generally having the mentality of a effeminate teenager with little to no maturity whatsoever.
   • A prime example of his childishness is when he was continually whining about how he lost to Spheria at a pac-pong tournament years ago as shown in the episode "Pac-Pong Fever" and was constantly saying how she cheated even when Betrayus himself lost fair and square, which was something he never got over and held a grudge on for years, which is pretty pitiful of him.
   • As seen in the episode "The Great Chase!", when his mom was seen spending time with his brother, Stratos, he complains and nags about it to the point of setting Butt-ler on fire. When he stupidly asks his mom whose fault it was that Betrayus doesn't have his body back, to of which Butt-ler and Dr. Buttocks respond with Betrayus being the cause his own demise. The same episode that has Betrayus behave and cry like a actual baby in front of his mother as if he's a 7 year old. Which gets very cringeworthy and painful to watch.
   • The fact that he cannot sleep without his stuffed toy bunny and always sucks on his thumb like an actual baby does. Not only does it make him kinda irritating for the fact he always acts incredibly childish, but it also makes him look hypocritical when in the episode "Mission ImPacable!", he tells Butt-ler that he doesn't need a teddy bear when one of his demands for Butt-ler is giving him his plushie, making Butt-ler rolls his eyes like anyone would.
   • He throws fits when he isn't acknowledged in various schemes, and then passes the blame onto others when he fails, making him very delusional and obstinate.
3. Following from this, he is also very cowardly and pusillanimous, letting others do the dirty work on his behalf. As well as being very petulant, irresponsible, and aggravated, he tends to throw too many breakdowns whenever things do not go his way because of how immature he is, and not in a charming way either.
4. In addition to being a complete and utter "manbaby" we're supposed to hate as the villain he is, Betrayus is also far too arrogant and a wrathful narcissist who will do just about anything to get what he wants, even when he ruthlessly forces his henchmen into his schemes. More often than not, it usually makes him look super reckless and easy to manipulate towards any sane person, even more than necessary.
   • If Pac-Man chooses to eat him or defeat him for his nefarious deeds, he holds his grudges and acts like he didn't deserve it despite Betrayus getting what's coming to him, depending on the episode.
   • Sometimes he attempts to take the credit for what inventions Dr. Buttocks come up with and Betrayus would selfishly use those ideas for his schemes, which causes Betrayus to screw up and cause problems for others because of not knowing how to use those inventions properly, his lack of skill would better show this because of his endless cowardice and narcissism. Making him too laughable for us to respect him as a villain.
5. Sloppy Backstory/Motives: On top of being more of a complete joke than a main antagonist, even though he was once a genocidal warlord, his motives as a villain are all over the place and make very little to no sense.
   • It doesn't make much sense why such an embittered manchild like Betrayus would want to become a power-hungry warlord when he grew up outside of jealousy. After all, the only thing we know about his past was him wanting to be great at Pac-Pong, not being cared enough by his family, and becoming a warlord who wanted to outshine his brother and gain control of Pac-World, yet there was no explained reason for committing genocide towards yellow people (genocide itself being a very heavy topic to be placed in a kids' show! As well as it coming off as a very racist implication since he murdered "the yellow ones" just because he wanted to). Making it very hard to understand how he goes from being embittered about winning at ping pong and wanting to show how impressive he is as a person growing up, to starting a war and committing genocidal acts towards specifically yellow-colored people without any well-explained reason or well-developed motive to do so.
   • His underhanded schemes from seasons 2 and 3, tend to be very nonsensical and badly thought-out, even by Pac-Man standards. The fact that he still orders his minions to antagonize Pac-World, even though he and the ghosts are always defeated by Pac-Man when they all already know that they're already going to get eaten by Pac-Man in general, this brings up the question: why should Betrayus care so much about getting the repository if he's already dead, can use fire to his advantage as he attempted to raise up the temperature of Pac-World to commit worldwide heat exhaustion in the episode "Betrayus Turns the Heat Up" (and tried inflicting pyrokinetic attacks onto Skeebo once in "Heebo-Skeebo"), having nobody reliable enough to help him succeed, already rules the Pac-World embodiment of hell (that being the Neither World), and was proven to be just as powerless as any other ghost in the series???
6. Character Derailment: He suffers from both flanderization and Character derailment, the latter moreso.
   • He went from being a decently entertaining villain with balanced moments of comedic relief and seriousness in the very first episode "The Adventure Begins". After the first episode, however, he has later slowly become more and more of an overly pathetic, mostly condescending and unintimidating, downright idiotic and childish, deluded, and whining bungler who has never succeeded at anything evil and never learns from anything he does despite acting all 'deceptive and cunning'.
   • This gets to the point that his flanderization not only starts to wear thin fast as of seasons 2 and 3, but it absorbs it's character to the point of no return; especially when he becomes even more unlikeable, dumber, more sadistic, mean-spirited, and even more ineffectual than ever before.
   • As of season 3, he's become a full-blown "comic relief villain" whose bumbling antics have become just as mediocre as in seasons 1 and 2, if not worse. Especially when he was sometimes depicted as a frothy trickster in the previous 2 seasons in episodes like "Pac-Mania", making him still treated more like a joke villain than a humorous threat. Even at the last episode of season 3, "New Girl in Town"; where his tactics of rationalizing and fabrication towards his own niece Elli, were far too subpar and prolonged to be effective or scary, therefore, making his attempted acts of villainy in this season, harder to take the slightest bit seriously.
7. When it comes to how he is written, the worst part about his flanderization is that he feels more or less like a very clichéd, lackluster, and bland modern-day embodiment of classical villains from the past like Dr. Ivo Robotnik from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, King K. Rool from the Donkey Kong Country TV series, and King Koopa from both The Super Mario Bros Super Show and The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3; three examples of video-game related villains that were depicted as hammy and incompetent yet threatening villains with their share of fearsome and comedic moments, and they were all genuinely hilarious and enjoyable with their cartoonishly evil personalities 20 to 24 years before Betrayus.
   • In fact, the more you look into it, despite most of these pointers listed below being typical traits of a cartoon supervillain of the 20th century; but there are many aspects of Lord Betrayus' personality traits, behavior, and situations that are almost identical to Dr. Robotnik from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog as well! (If said traits AoStH Robotnik had, and even his worst flaws, were all upped even more than necessary. To the point that he comes across like a potential knockoff of that version of Dr. Robotnik by comparison). Several examples of these include:
     • Being a flamboyant supervillain who lives in frustration towards the fact his archenemy gets in the way of his plans of conquest. Where he considers Pac-Man his most hated enemy, which is expressed with the exact same level of overinflated enjoyment in their enemies' misery, best seen in episodes like "Is Zit You Or Is Zit Me?", for example has a similar vibe of how Robotnik would revel in their archenemy's suffering with such delight in countless episodes like "Over the Hill" and "Subterranean Sonic" for example.
       • In "Honey, I Digitized the Pac-Man", it has a similar premise of shrinking Pac-Man down to size so Betrayus can harm him like he's a tiny bug, the same way Dr. Robotnik did this differently in a similarly named episode called "Honey, I Shunk The Hedgehog" coincidentally enough.
     • As the main antagonist; he is given a character design that could make him seem like a potentially intimidating villain to Pac-Man, but his character is so pathetic it's hard to take him seriously. Except Betrayus' characterization is far more buffoonish, pitiable, and juvenile than Robotnik since Betrayus continually falls from grace in every episode since the first, contrasting AoStH's Robotnik having more formidable moments and has been treated like a comedic threat at times. Speaking of character design, Betrayus also sports a long mustache in ghost form with makeup that (kind of) resembles a AOSTH Robotnik version of a Pac-Man ghost with a flashy goth aesthetic (especially the black eye makeup on Betrayus's face and the metallic looking long gloves).
     • Having some level of cleverness to see trivial events or decisions as potential opportunities to further their single-minded goals of hegemony. A typical aspect of a villain for sure, but the way they express this in a exaggerated manner, is very similar to how Robotnik expresses his dreams of conquest in a very detailed manner.
     • On top of this, him being a tyrannical jerk that always behave like a puerile, vengeful, narcissistic, fussy psychopath whose stupid actions and decisions happen to make them very inefficient, unwary, and aimless a lot of the time, as his methods never gets him anywhere. Another typical trait of a ineffectual supervillain, but they both share similarities on how their comedically exaggerated their levels of anger and control-freakish nature results on how their incompetence and antics, affect them as villains.
     • Prone to behaving in a completely neurotic, high-strung and excitable fashion whenever he's being humiliated, excited about his plans working, or being looked down upon; all done in a very over-the-top fashion.
     • Being a villain who's generally depicted as the show's object of ridicule for how unfortunate, dramatic, and overreactive he generally is. Especially when he is supposedly the hot-headed and hare-brained comic foil to Pac-Man, Stratos, and even his ghostly minions. (Where AoStH Robotnik was meant to be this as shown in concept art, Betrayus doesn't appear to have the same direction Robotnik had and appears to have a direction of being a "wacky ghost villain" you'd see in Danny Phantom, making Betrayus seem like a unoriginal imitation of Robotnik in comparison).
     • They are both shown to have a comedic personal vendetta towards those who hinder his progress (Pac-Man is often praised for winning over him all the time and his brother Stratos is living the good life as the city's president; to the point of growing a certain level of antagonistic hatred towards them for their status and respect in the exact same way Dr. Robotnik hates Sonic for his status as the town's hero and defeating him all the time).
     • Even though they're villains in the works of children's entertainment, they are both subjected to moments of over-exaggerated slapstick abuse that treat them like incompetent comic reliefs when they sometimes didn't deserve it or should not be receiving it like a comic-relief should be, especially since they're supposed to be main antagonists that pose threats but have funny traits and moments, and are not just solely "comedic relief". Best examples for these include episodes like "Cosmic Contest", "Meanie Genie", "Indiana Pac and the Temple of Slime", "Pac-Mania", & "The Shadow of the Were" that showcases Betrayus acting like a complete schlemiel.
       • All of which doesn't really work for Betrayus since Robotnik had these many moments in the show because it actually fits the intentionally surreal and absurd nature from the cartoon in like episodes "Robotnikland", "The Little Merhog", "Lovesick Sonic", and "Submerged Sonic" for example; because the show Robotnik was in had the nature of Looney Tunes where it's a Comedy show, constrasting Betrayus being in a "comedy adventure" show that prides itself on seriousness in the same way Danny Phantom is supposed to be, making it more underdeveloped and uninspired in the long run.
     • They both had a love interest who both wanted nothing to do with them, where Betrayus's jealousy over Sir Cumference being in a love affair with Sperphia in the episode "That Smarts!" made him act insecure and antagonistic towards him, which is pretty similar to Robotnik having a personal rivalry with Lucas when they were both in love with Lucidina in "Best Hedgehog".
       • Not to mention that they both also had a female "yandere" love interest who both were too insecure to say no to the women's love-struck behavior and both females wanted to help get rid of the males' archnemeses in exchange for a relationship. As well as the two finding a way to escape the overwhelming infatuation, where they were both forced into a marriage because the women helped their male partners overpower their enemies. However, the setups and endings do differ though. In the episode "Jinxed": The witch, Madame Ghoulasha, displays smitten infatuation towards Betrayus even though Betrayus doesn't feel the same way, as Ghoulasha also tries to help Betrayus get rid of Pac-Man in exchange to get married is incredibly similar to the plot of Katella displaying smitten behavior towards Robotnik and was willing to help Robotnik so she could be his future wife in the episode "Zoobotnik" (it doesn't help that the talented voice actress herself who voiced Katella in that show, Kathleen Barr, also voices Madame Ghoulasha. Which is far too similar to be an coincidence).
     • They both had mothers who treated them unfairly and cruelly, to the point where they were practically raised to become villains of some sort and come off as petty since they have emotional conflicts that came from their treatment from the moms. The mothers both betray their sons' trusts and talk down to them in ways that would emotionally affect them in a negative light, except in the episode "Sonic is Running"; Robotnik actually y'know, betrayed his mom in response to her underestimation of him whereas Betrayus in "The Great Chase!" ended up crying like a baby naturally would as discussed above, as he flew back to his lair like a child running away in tears (Betrayus's mom is rather cruel towards Betrayus's feelings in comparison to Robotnik's generally abusive mother).
     • He also has a superiority complex over his loyal but long-suffering minions despite Betrayus himself being just as imperfect as them, if not a lot more than they are. To the point of acting very stubborn, defensive and condescending towards them, even when he's completely misunderstanding something he needed to know. Not to mention his act of constantly abusing his underlings emotionally or physically in a sadistic and mean-spirited manner, which has been taken to the point that it makes Betrayus look more loathsome than redeemable.
     • They both come up with sophisticated and wordy yet silly-sounding insults and retorts toward those he disapproves of to suit the goofiness of their character, using puns to make this much more evident in a shamelessly blunt manner (Robotnik uses specific puns to insult Sonic like calling him a "glorified porcupine", "trouble-making teenager", "spine-puss" or a "hedgerat"; Similarly, Betrayus usually calls Pac-Man a "lemon loser", "lemon menace", "Pac-Pain", "lemon lummox" or a "ghost gobbling lemonhead", as well as calling Butt-ler an "worthless nobody" and a "purple-fingered failure". Something two villains in the comparisons, King Koopa and King K. Rool, are also remembered for.)
     • They both had partners and minions of their own, that often betray him, like how many of Robotnik's minions screwing up, as well as newfound partners of crime double-crossing him or betraying him in front of their archenemy, is just like how the majority of Betrayus's allies are (like the recurring Ghost Gang themselves!).
       • Not to mention both Betrayus and Robotnik having supposedly gay moments with their one-off accomplices. Where Robotnik blushed over being forced to smooch Quark in the episode "Robotnik's Rival", Betrayus physically brushes his finger onto Apex's chest that makes it look like he's flirting with him while he says "let's talk" in a very seductive way in the episode "Invasion of the Pointy Heads".
     • They both had a petty flashback of theirs that paints themselves as sympathetic when in reality, they were deluded and their pettiness was what started their villainy. In the same way that Robotnik became evil because of his envy with Lucas, a minor yet evident reason for the rise of his villainy career in "Best Hedgehog", Betrayus became a villain because of his envy over losing a tennis match against his supposed love-interest Spheria in "Pac-Pong Fever".
     • They both tend to make tons of extremely hasty decisions to plans they "think" are brilliant and flawless on the surface without thinking twice about the bigger picture. To the point it's more opportunistic and foolish than well-planned and successful, thus making their chances to succeed, not very likely to ever happen. However, Betrayus is a lot worse at this flaw than most villains have due to his endless procrastination, idiocy and childishness on top of having a lack of keen premediation.
     • They both were seen changing into many outfits outside of their regular appearance. Just like how Robotnik changes his appearances many times like pajamas or wearing a fake business suit once, Betrayus also had moments like this as seen in episodes like "A Hard Dazed Knight"; where he is seen wearing a crown, in "Jurassic Pac" he puts on clown makeup with a tacky suit to match, and in "Seems Like Old Times", he is seen wearing a red sleeping hat with his stuffed pink bunny).
       • Speaking of plushies, Robotnik and Betrayus both individually have showed a level of care and concern for keeping their plush animals with them upon sleeping. Where the episode "Momma Robotnik's Birthday" had Robotnik show plenty of sympathy and care over Fuzzy Wuzzy being harmed; the episode "Mission ImPacable!" had Betrayus had him getting Butt-ler wanting him to bring one to him, and is later seen sucking on his thumb loudly while sleeping with his plush toy, which is also something Dr. Robotnik literally did in the famous episode "Boogie-Mania".
   • Also, some of his personality traits share vast similarities to King K. Rool from the Donkey Kong Country cartoon. Some examples of these include:
     • He always acts cunning, underhanded, conniving, and self-important with his plans that either has the potential to fail or succeed, but in the end of the day, he's just a consistent failure who happens to be very immature and a little dumb (except K. Rool in from DKC Season 2, was clever enough that he actually managed to take over Congo Bongo once, where Betrayus never had at least a moment of winning ever).
     • He constantly belittles his underlings, snaps at them all the time, and bluntly insults (almost) all of the ghosts for their ineptitude in defeating Pac-Man and getting what Betrayus wants in a irritable manner despite Betrayus also being much more of a bungler than they are, as he also relies on them to succeed so Betrayus can achieve at his plans (the way K. Rool does it is very humorous and comedic in tone since K. Rool was actually sympathetic most of the time and his flaws were more explored in that show, Betrayus' way of doing this comes off as too mean-spirited to get a good laugh).
     • He is usually given once too many comedic and exaggerated moments that make him way too silly to be taken seriously and enforcing his unmenacing demeanor as discussed above, especially since he's also an over-the-top "card-carrying villain" with a hammy dialect as mentioned earlier.
8. Much like The Storm King from My Little Pony: The Movie, while he can be amusing and/or sympathetic sometimes, Lord Betrayus overall is an extremely campy and weak comedic villain that takes the idea of a "comedic villain" to a pitifully piss-poor extent, that it becomes more irritating and humorless than funny, as he lacks the charm of a comedic villain (for the most part). Aside from being a supervillain with delusions of grandeur, his traits that include his childish silliness, constant shortcomings, and petty motives/actions are pretty much his sole characteristics played for laughs, and nothing much else other than that.
9. To add on from the previous pointer; there were many times when a lot of his dialogue, comedy gags, jests, and retorts tend to be more cheesy or humorless than the writers intended it to come off as comic gold. As it would sometimes sound like a comedian constantly trying way too hard to make a villain sound funny in a over-the-top manner. Especially since Betrayus acts like he's the most threatening villain around, tells the funniest jokes or behaves like an underappreciated edge-lord, sometimes all at once.
   • One example of Betrayus making a unironically bad dark joke was the episode "Nobody Knows" from Season 1, where Pac-Man, Spiral and Cylindria were hanging from a cliff and surviving from their death, Betrayus spots them with his minions, Betrayus starts cackling and makes a sadist joke by telling Pac-Man that he noticed him "hanging in there", laughing it up as if it was a very funny joke he just made as his ghost army laugh after Betrayus just did, and then demanding Pac-Man for the repository as if he knew where it actually was, which gets treated like a running-gag at a point. Which in it's entirety, is not funny whatsoever and the running gag gets more tedious and repetitive than anything else.
   • Another example of Betrayus making a unfunny joke was the Season 3 episode "Pac's Very Scary Halloween (Part One)"; when he tells a worried female ghost to do her job with sarcasm in a typically mean-spirited manner, then the hovering eyeballs of a ghost bump into Betrayus, which makes Betrayus' eyes pop out', and he holds onto his own eyeballs and tells the hovering eyeballs of another ghost, to watch where it's going before he gives it a "black eye" (which is the most stale joke he's told so far).
   • There was this occasional running gag Betrayus has, as seen in "Pac's Very Scary Halloween (Part One)", where he tells others like Butt-ler and Dr. Buttocks the ever so hypocritical one-liner: "have fun with your dim-witted delusions", as it'd resort to Betrayus always flying to his personal outhouse he keeps in his own room and taking a loud dump there, presumably taking a crap on top of Inky with fart sounds being played for laughs , as Clyde says "Poor Inky" for always hiding in the wrong places.
10. His levels of flamboyance, overconfidence, bossiness, pettiness, incompetence, immaturity, wrath, pedanctism, arrogance, jerkishness, overreaction, hamminess, buffoonery, mischief, and occasional sarcasm are all generally taken to the point of being stale and irritating.
11. The biggest problem with Betrayus being insufferable and annoying to watch, overall, is his voice. It is incredibly whiny, grating, squeaky and unpleasant to listen to. No disrespect to the voice actor, Samuel Vincent (the voice behind Edd, aka Double D), Betrayus's voice sounds like if Jack Black swallowed too many squeakers, gargled nails and tried pulling off a effeminate drag queen act while imitating The Joker. His voice comes across as passable at best, and extremely intolerable at worst, such to the point it wastes the talent of Samuel Vincent.
    • The worst offenders are his his nasally/effeminate voice cracks, his childish cries, whimpering, wailing, or squealing; all of are the most ear-grating and abymsal aspects of his voice, which is something that he does.
    • His yelling and laughing, in general, tends to sound extremely irritating in nearly all of his appearances in almost every single episode of the show.
    • In fact, Christopher Corey Smith did a rather subpar job voicing him in the first Ghostly Adventures game, where Betrayus started off sounding really harsh and annoying, the worst offender being his long-lasting yelling when he says "Nooooo!!" upon getting eaten by Pac-Man. However, the voice actor does improve this issue in the second Ghostly Adventures game and sounds less annoying than Betrayus' english voice in general.
12. His design is impressingly bad, as it looks like he's meant to be gothic and edgy as a ghost when he's the opposite of that, making it a sight to behold.
    • His design in his younger years before he became a warlord looks way too cheesy and terrible, even by Pac-Man standards.
    • In Season 1's "Jurassic Pac", his clown makeup is incredibly cringe-worthy, ugly and creepy to look at, to the point of being rather unsettling and hideous.
13. This aside, in the show; he can sometimes make some REALLY awkward-looking facial expressions in an extremely over-the-top manner (especially his spiky teeth, his eyes and mouth shape that can look a little off-putting in motion. For example, the episode "Nobody Knows" having a ugly shot of his grey teeth in a gaping mouth of his), which can make his expressions look very deranged in an rather ugly, creepy and strange-looking way at times (In 2D, it'd look way better)
    • On top of that, Betrayus gets once too many extreme closeups to the camera in many episodes to list ever since the first episode like "Nobody Knows", "Invasion of the Pointy Heads" or "All You Can Eat". Which can be rather uncomfortable and incredibly awkward to watch instead of it being funny or charming.
14. Misleading name: Not only is his name is the worst name you could ever name a villain, but it's really misleading. Despite his very name being Lord Betrayus, he never really betrays anybody that trusted him throughout the animated series despite how evil he is.
    • Sure he is a self-centered, manipulative, deceitful, and egotistical sociopath who wants nothing but to get the repository in order to rule Pac-World after being banished and is often rude to characters that are loyal to him such as his servant, Butt-ler. Yet he never displays any real signs of betrayal like genuinely helping out his enemies as a form of treachery, being treacherous, or double-crossing his allies outside of being selfish, malicious or competitive (ex. "Cosmic Contest" has Betrayus being bossy towards Buttocks & acting competitive towards Apex in his attempts to win over Apex, and some unknown force claimed that the "trio" are betraying each other when they really weren't, they were acting like competitive children).
    • In "Invasion of the Pointy Heads", he claims that he'll "betray" the aliens and take their half of the deal once he conquers Pac-World in front of Apex and his assistant while attempting to side talk the attempted betrayal with Dr. Buttocks, but instead he gets betrayed and is proven to be some helpless distraction upon trying to team up with Apex once the latter conquers Pac-World himself!
    • Despite the whole show, never showing Betrayus y'know, betray anyone. There was only ONE, forgettable easter episode called "Easter Egg Island", that had him helping his enemies for no good reason. Which still proves his name is rather misleading and lacking in meaning when only ONE episode has him do anything that he should be doing consistently as the show's supposedly "treacherous" villain .
    • As a matter of fact, he has shown to be betrayed by many other characters like his favoristic mother who favors Stratos over him, the iconic Ghost Gang who often helps out Pac-Man a lot of the time (basically being disloyal to Betrayus behind his back), and some of Betrayus's minions constantly screw up at defeating Pac-Man in a traitorous manner after being eaten and belched out. It doesn't help that a ghost such as Spector from the episode "The Spy Who Slimed Me", for example, is a prime example of a ghost who tried gloating about his success and was caught on camera of him actually betraying Lord Betrayus himself before Spector inevitably got caught on camera and sent to a dungeon to pay for his sneaky crimes of greed and usurpation. So Betrayus's very name tends to be more contradictory than anything.
    • It doesn't help that his name is so horribly thought out, it's similar to how George Lucas proposed the name for the main character to be named "Darth Insanius" in the Star Wars game The Force Unleashed.
15. He is somewhat of a hypocrite on occasion because of how self-deluded and foolish he generally is; these moments include:
    • In the episode "The Great Chase!", him getting jealous over his brother, Stratos, and then asking Dr. Buttocks why are people cruel when Betrayus himself mistreats everyone around him.
    • In the episode "The Spy Who Slimed Me", he labels each and everyone in the Netherworld as a complete klutz (who also considers Dr. Buttocks as the most inept, pathetic, and worthless minions around) when Betrayus himself is literally everything that he just said, completely inefficient and a screw-up when it comes to defeating Pac-Man and succeeding at his ambitions.
    • In the episode "Heebo-Skeebo", when Skeebo was tied up and then sent into one of Betrayus's dungeons for being a clumsy charlatan of a hero, Betrayus first called him a "buffoon", which is obvious hypocrisy considering that Betrayus literally is a buffoon, personality-wise as the shows' object of ridicule discussed above.
    • In the episode "Nobody Knows", he claims to be tired of Dr. Buttocks' ego and made him find sludge in the other end of Netherworld. Considering that Betrayus is a full-on egotist with a god complex, it just displays his delusional personality.
16. Despite being an extremely childish and insecure coward for such a megalomaniac like him, he often demeans, abuses, and belittles the ghosts that continue to serve him in trivial yet unpleasant ways (all for little to no good reason), and because of how realistic and tragic the irony behind this is; it's not always fun to see him mistreat his loyal minions endlessly, especially Butt-ler (as seen in episodes like "Planet Pac" for example) and even Dr. Buttocks as seen in the episode "Ride the Wild Pac-Topus". The following reason why his fellow ghosts act hostile toward him at the end of the episode "Nobody Knows".
    • He seems to not care that much if his ghostly people indulge in toxic behavior with each other (e.g Butt-ler and Dr. Buttocks fighting with each other), and he always make them do whatever he wants them to do, no matter how stupid or pointless it can be (e.g the episode "PacLantis" has him making Buttocks and Butt-ler carry him in a transparent sphere after taking him there with a vehicle, to announce his presence and his act of wanting to conquer a world of fish for whatever reason than to assert dominance; which in response, Butt-ler expresses how greatly underwhelmed he is by the fact Betrayus thought it was a good plan, to begin with).
    • Also, due to his narcissistic nature and how he mistreats his minions, he has a huge superiority complex with almost everyone unless they're on his side of the story with wanting to defeat Pac-Man, all in a rather immature way since he can act like a persistent, competitive yet selfish little kid who calls his rivals "losers" or his allies with insults that are just as childish and demeaning, all of which despite him being a sneaky scoundrel who wants his ghosts to help him succeed, making him very insufferable to put up with.
17. In the PMATGA games, despite being able to commit villainous actions (especially in the second game), his boss fights are a complete joke since they're way too easy to be challenging; especially since it only takes 4 hits to defeat him in the first game despite the obstacles he inflicts have litte challenge like bouncing the speedy projectiles back at him while dodging countless obstacles, all in which, made his boss fight more tedious than enjoyable.
    • Even though his final boss battle in the second game can be considered a bit of an improvement, it also makes Betrayus come off as a complete idiot in terms of defeating Pac-Man by how the game's storytelling shows. Especially since he had increased in size because of a ray Dr. Buttocks used to make Betrayus giant with a paddle that is just as big as him (meaning he is literally big enough to easily kill Pac-Man with no effort). If he was written better, he would've done this to win over Pac-Man to get back the repository with his ghost army as he claims. But instead of crushing Pac-Man with the tennis paddle on the spot, he instead makes some pointlessly long tennis match with little to no challenge, in which later he does then attempt swatting Pac-Man; but only at the very last moment, making him easily defeated by Pac-Man at that point.
    • It's even more surprising to know that even his own ghostly minions seem like they do a better job at trying to pose more of a threat to Pac-Man than Betrayus thinks he does, making it hard to believe anyone would take Betrayus seriously at all.
18. Despite being a ghost in a cartoon, he can still have random things physically happen to him, and it never makes any sense how the way this series presents physics or elementals towards phantoms.
    • In "Indiana Pac and the Temple of Slime", Betrayus gets decapitated on screen despite being a ghost, and have his head sowed on backwards, obliviously making a fool of himself and flies into the sky, resulting in the recurring Ghost gang laughing at Betrayus. This means Betrayus is also quite sadomasochistic despite being in a kids show!
    • In "Rip Van Packle", Betrayus can have slime poured onto him.
    • In "Seems Like Old Times", he can wear ordinary hats and as seen in this episode.
    • Many episodes like "Pac's Very Scary Halloween (Part One)" and "Pac-Pong Fever"; he can hold his very own eyeballs as they tend to pop out of his eye sockets quite easily, which is just very unsettling on it's own. Sounding a little too familiar here??
    • In "Cave Pac-Man", he and Dr. Buttocks somehow fall from the sky like they lost traction and friction, despite being spirits that are able to fly in the sky as far and high as they like. How do you logically explain or justify this? It being a "kids' cartoon", is not a good excuse for such shoddy writing!
    • In "The Wizard of Odd", he and Butt-ler can be gravitized even though they're not made out of metal, and they are still ghosts (the spiky gauntlets on Betrayus' hands and Buttocks' robot hand could be easy to overlook in this pointer, it doesn't take away the fact that it makes very little sense).
    • In "Mission ImPacable!", when Pac-Man fell on top of him, it's revealed that he, and presumably all of the ghosts, are made out of slime. Not only was this scene played for gross-out humor since Betrayus remains oblivious to this and sucks on his thumb in his sleep while whining like a two-year old, but it makes you question the show's logic a little more (if not disgusted by this).
    • In "Easter Egg Island", while Betrayus was talking in his sleep because of a blind-fold on his eyes and was in Sir Cumferences' labroom, he was held onto by a robot as if he was a regular living person. (not trapped inside of a vaccum, a bottle or a vase, mind you)
    • In "PacLantis", he can be wet and burnt upon touching water as if he's made out of fire despite the fact he is made out of slime.
    • In "Cosmic Contest", he can be frozen solid and also electrocuted.
    • He was once shown to be easy to spin around with ghosts barging all over him twice, and one time he was sent tossed skyrocketing and flying into the Ghost Gang with a pirate hat like he was on a slingshot. All of which proves that he is a weakling, even as a ghostly spirit.

Redeeming Qualities

1. He does have moments here and there with being humorous or somewhat entertaining. Mainly because of how over-the-top and childishly eccentric he is.
   • He was a decent comic-relief antagonist in the very first episode "The Adventure Begins" who also had a somewhat sympathetic backstory for being banished and wanting his body back as his source of motivation for conquering Pac-World (especially since he was just a harmless man-child who became evil because of his childhood-related trauma disorders), too bad he was horribly derailed as the series progressed.
   • On the topic of sympathy, as mentioned at WHIFTSU#6, there are times where his pathetic defeats and levels of humiliation can make viewers understand why he hates Pac-Man with a strong passion.
2. As mentioned at WHIFTSU #1 and #14, there were minor moments here and there when he could be effective and come off as a little bit of a threat despite being very ridiculous, incompetent and pathetic. These include occasions in episodes like "Heebo-Skeebo" when Skeebo was sent to one of Betrayus's dungeons, right after Betrayus attempted using a fire attack to burn Skeebo.
   • He, as mentioned before at WHIFTSU #14, did commit some heinous actions that make him a little bit formidable if he isn't being too "comedic". Examples of these include the second Ghostly Adventures game where he kidnapped Pac-Man's parents and needed to make Pac-Man bring the repository to him by tricking Pac-Man with a subtle lie with the help of Apex, which had the potential to succeed. This is where he actually betrays Pac-Man for once by an actual double-cross as a part of his plan (despite being deceived by Sir Cumference), which is a shocker since this was what makes his name somewhat meaningful compared to the last game and the animated series he starred in.
3. In "Invasion of the Pointy Heads", the only true thing he almost admits about himself is being a coward, which he prefers to call it "caution", and that's pretty much it.
4. He always receives comeuppance for his sinful deeds, usually by Pacster eating him and spewing out his eyeballs. So it can be argued that he isn't too much of a Karma Houdini.
5. Since he is the titular villain of the show, it's clear that he was meant to be hated due to how mean and despicable he is. (But not all villains are supposed to be hated, they can also come off as likable, understandable for their motives, and sometimes very funny/entertaining for providing great moments of comedy for example: Doctor Doofenshmirtz, Thanos, Darth Vader, Eren Yeager, and Steppenwolf (Snyder Cut), etc.)
6. Despite how misleading his personality is, some people can find his ghost design (and his Pac-Worlder design as an adult in "Pac to the Future") to be serviceable and iconic enough to fit his role as the main antagonist.
   • While most of his facial expressions tend to be ugly, some of his facial expressions can look okay and passable at times.
7. All of his theme songs and leitmotifs, like Castle Crashers are extremely catchy and wonderful to listen to. It gives off a ghostly and haunted yet light-hearted and bouncy vibe.
8. While his voice is very annoying and whiny, at least his voice actor, Samuel Vincent, did try his best to do an okay job at voicing him while he was voicing Betrayus the way the sound directors told Betrayus to sound (as his voice can be passable whenever Betrayus isn't yelling or whining with grating voice cracks). You can also tell that Samuel tried having fun with providing the voice for the role of a villain by doing a Peter Zimmerman voice impression.
9. Some of his quotes can be either a little funny, somewhat clever, pretty funny, or just interesting, such examples include:
   • "I AM THE BEST! ME! ME! IS THAT CLEAR? MMEE!!!"
   • "Pulverize the old hag!"
   • "Oh, I see! My dear sweet mother is visiting her favorite son Stratos and not ME!! How can people be so cruel?"
   • "No-body is sneakier than ME!! So deal with them and leave Pac-World to me and MY ghosts!!! Also, my nose itches, and I can't scratch it, YEOW!!"
   • "What are you free-loaders doing?! Is that my credit card? I'm not paying for those pizzas and-"
   • "You?! Forget it!"
   • "This! Isn't! The Reposit-torrryyyy!!!"
   • "HOW, DARE YOU CALL ME A HOT-HEAD!!"
   • "C-C-Cr-Crime!? WHHHAAAAA??? I uh, I don't recall committing ANY 'crime'!"
   • "'Image'?? YOU'RE just a stale 'ol, marshmellow chicken!!"
   • "Guagh! Gag mmee! I don't understand what you see in this show!"
   • "Where's the action? WHERE IS THE EXPLOSION!?"

Videos

(TV counterpart) (Skip to 20:08 for the seventh video)

(Gaming counterpart) (Skip to 8:29 for the first video) (Skip to 8:07 for the second video) (Skip to 5:22 for the fourth video)

Gallery

• 

  Pre-Ghost era, an adult as a Pac-Worlder as seen in "Pac of the Future".

Trivia

• His name is a play on the two words "betray" and "us". Which is also a pun for a former CIA Director David Petraeus.
• His mother often calls him "Tray-Tray" as a nickname of his.
• He shares a lot of similarities with Klogg from The Neverhood (being hammy, sharp-fingered, having red and white colors, and having a brother on the side of good) and Lucius from Jimmy Two-Shoes (being the ruler of Hell-in-everything-but-name, has fire powers, and is very attached to a stuffed pink rabbit).
  • In addition to this, he is also similar to Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2, as both characters are particularly associated with fire, have red/white/black colors, metal talons, and have supposed involvements in the genocide of the hero's entire race who may not have been entirely succeeded after all.
• To quote this article on the series that discusses Betrayus's name, "If your mother named you something like Betrayus, could you honestly go through life and not feel obligated to live up to it?".
• Despite every single flaw he has, there were and still are, plenty of fans out there who genuinely support and adore this character throughout. This is taken to the point where fans of the show (or people who dislike the show) both consider him to be the best character in the show, reasons for this include him being viewed as a cute, sympathetic, entertaining, and hilarious villain in the same manner as Dr. Eggman/Robotnik from Sonic the Hedgehog.
• This is currently the fourth longest page on this wiki among its other contenders.

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